New hotel on island gets off to a great start

Beach balls flew as the community celebrated the opening of the new Holiday Inn Resort on Okaloosa Island. The Greater Fort Walton Beach and Destin Area chambers of commerce both held ribbon-cutting ceremonies for the new hotel Thursday morning.

DUSTY RICKETTS / Daily News

Published: Thursday, May 22, 2014 at 03:53 PM.

OKALOOSA ISLAND — The island’s newest hotel is off to a strong start as more than 200 people turned out for the grand opening of the Holiday Inn Resort, which is nearly booked solid this weekend.

Innisfree Hotels held a grand opening and ribbon-cutting celebration Thursday morning for their brand new Holiday Inn Resort on Okaloosa Island.

The $25 million facility opened earlier this week and is off to the best start of any new hotel in Innisfree’s nearly 30-year history.

“It’s super exciting for me to be in this position, to bring in something that I know is going to be a great contributor to the community,” said Julian MacQueen, founder and CEO of Innisfree Hotels.

“What I expect will happen is this will spur an entirely new wave of development,” MacQueen added. “People like new and they’ll go to new and suddenly this thing happens. I’ve seen it in many, many communities. The moment the first guy takes that leap of faith, everybody else follows.”

MacQueen said the Holiday Inn Resort had nearly $2 million in presale reservations before the hotel opened. Their previous record for presales was set with the opening of their Holiday Inn Resort on Pensacola Beach about three years ago when they broke $1 million in presales.

“We never thought we were going to be able to break that,” MacQueen said. “It clearly demonstrates that this market is screaming for new product.”

The new resort, between Waterscape condominiums and the Sheraton Four Points hotel, will feature a game room for children, daily children’s programs, 2,500 square feet of meeting space, a full-service restaurant, an outdoor lazy river and hot tub and an indoor swimming pool.

The hotel sits on 17 acres Innisfree leased from the Air Force. Eglin had used the property for years to monitor planes and equipment, but Brig. Gen. David Harris, installation commander for Eglin Air Force Base and commander of the 96th Test Wing, said the hotel was a much better use of the property.

Part of Eglin’s lease agreement with Innisfree included the construction of a large telemetry dish with state of the art tracking equipment on the roof. The dish has been painted to look like a giant beach ball.

“The beauty of this project was that it is a great enhancement to the local community,” Harris said. “We get elevation from five floors of hotel that we can sit our telemetry antennas on top of; that way we can get out over the curvature of the Earth, well out into the Gulf of Mexico, and be able to collect data off of test missions.

“(The hotel is) beautiful,” he added. “It’s a great project. It makes me proud to put that Air Force logo next to Innisfree Hotels and the Holiday Inn. We’re very excited.”

Community members who attended Thursday’s grand opening were impressed with the new hotel.

“I was here when they broke ground a few years ago and now to see it finished is unbelievable,” said Mark Hamrick, owner of the Vacuum Center in Fort Walton Beach. “I think they’ve got to be extremely happy with the amount of people they had here today. It was a great event and I’m glad they’re here.”

Contact Daily News Business Editor Dusty Ricketts at 850-315-4448 or dricketts@nwfdailynews.com. Follow him on Twitter @DustyRnwfdn.

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OKALOOSA ISLAND — The island’s newest hotel is off to a strong start as more than 200 people turned out for the grand opening of the Holiday Inn Resort, which is nearly booked solid this weekend.

Innisfree Hotels held a grand opening and ribbon-cutting celebration Thursday morning for their brand new Holiday Inn Resort on Okaloosa Island.

The $25 million facility opened earlier this week and is off to the best start of any new hotel in Innisfree’s nearly 30-year history.

“It’s super exciting for me to be in this position, to bring in something that I know is going to be a great contributor to the community,” said Julian MacQueen, founder and CEO of Innisfree Hotels.

“What I expect will happen is this will spur an entirely new wave of development,” MacQueen added. “People like new and they’ll go to new and suddenly this thing happens. I’ve seen it in many, many communities. The moment the first guy takes that leap of faith, everybody else follows.”

MacQueen said the Holiday Inn Resort had nearly $2 million in presale reservations before the hotel opened. Their previous record for presales was set with the opening of their Holiday Inn Resort on Pensacola Beach about three years ago when they broke $1 million in presales.

“We never thought we were going to be able to break that,” MacQueen said. “It clearly demonstrates that this market is screaming for new product.”

The new resort, between Waterscape condominiums and the Sheraton Four Points hotel, will feature a game room for children, daily children’s programs, 2,500 square feet of meeting space, a full-service restaurant, an outdoor lazy river and hot tub and an indoor swimming pool.

The hotel sits on 17 acres Innisfree leased from the Air Force. Eglin had used the property for years to monitor planes and equipment, but Brig. Gen. David Harris, installation commander for Eglin Air Force Base and commander of the 96th Test Wing, said the hotel was a much better use of the property.

Part of Eglin’s lease agreement with Innisfree included the construction of a large telemetry dish with state of the art tracking equipment on the roof. The dish has been painted to look like a giant beach ball.

“The beauty of this project was that it is a great enhancement to the local community,” Harris said. “We get elevation from five floors of hotel that we can sit our telemetry antennas on top of; that way we can get out over the curvature of the Earth, well out into the Gulf of Mexico, and be able to collect data off of test missions.

“(The hotel is) beautiful,” he added. “It’s a great project. It makes me proud to put that Air Force logo next to Innisfree Hotels and the Holiday Inn. We’re very excited.”

Community members who attended Thursday’s grand opening were impressed with the new hotel.

“I was here when they broke ground a few years ago and now to see it finished is unbelievable,” said Mark Hamrick, owner of the Vacuum Center in Fort Walton Beach. “I think they’ve got to be extremely happy with the amount of people they had here today. It was a great event and I’m glad they’re here.”

Contact Daily News Business Editor Dusty Ricketts at 850-315-4448 or dricketts@nwfdailynews.com. Follow him on Twitter @DustyRnwfdn.